1899

Charles W. Chesnutt was born to free blacks in Cleveland, OH in 1858. When he was eight years old his family returned to Fayetteville, NC. He began a teaching career and by 1880, he became the President of the Fayetteville State Normal School for Negroes. While in North Caroline, Chesnutt studied the culture, dialect, and superstitions of southern blacks. In 1883 he returned to Cleveland where...

In the summer of 1899, Robert A. Hart, the mayor of the city of Baton Rouge in Louisiana, along with a small band of progressive citizens persuaded local property owners to approve a sequence of bond issues in order to improve the area. One of the issues cost 200,000 and paid for a new city hall, a new school, and paving of certain roads. Other issues went towards making new schools and hospitals...

The Tampa Museum of Art reveals the history and diversity of works by black artists. There are many pieces of work that date all the way back to the 1850s. While there are primarily African American artists in the museum there are also White artists. The museum includes major artists such as Jacob Lawrence, Romare Bearden, and Henry O. Tanner.

Rollins alumnus and adventure novelist, Rex E. Beach knew what it meant to be a man in the early 20th century. Beach was physically active, between sports in his college days at Rollins and mining in Alaska where he first tapped into his literary prowess. An account by friend Dave King, published in the New York Times, recounts the hardships involved in the search for gold and other valuable...

Detroit in the 1880s was growing, and seeking a reputation among the great cities of the era. When well-to-do citizens formed the exposition company, they imagined a fair that would marry agriculture and industry in a world class exposition. By early 1889, the exposition company had a capital stock of $500,000 to draw on, and the Detroit International Fair and Exposition became a reality.

On January 5, 1899 the Virginian-Pilot reported that a young black male in the town of Portsmouth, Virginia had stolen the pocketbook of a lady whose services he was filling. While this petty incident of crime was relatively unnoticed, buried in the middle of the paper, the style in which the brief story was written illustrates the social opinions in this southern city. The story goes on to describe...

The January 21 edition of the Richmond Dispatch announced the opening of large cotton mills in two towns in Virginia, Manchester and Old Dominion. The mills were already constructed in both towns, but had been closed, the Marshall Mills in Manchester for eighteen months and the Dominion mills for five years. The Mills would now be run in cooperation with one another, adopting the name United Cotton...

In 1899, there were a total of twenty-two Cuban students attending Rollins College, whereas before 1896, there were none. According to the Winter Park Scrapbook, they were the moral and intellectual equals of their American peers, though most knew very little English upon arriving in Winter Park. These students chose Rollins College primarily because of its proximity to their homeland and its affordable...

A two month long strike in the cotton mills of Augusta ended in January after workers gave in a struggle with employers over wages and standards of living. The strike began on November 22, 1898. The strike was expected by those in the community, as tension had been mounting among the workers of the King mills, the Sibley mills, the Enterprise, the Warwick and the Isaetta. Workers at several of the...

On February 3, 1899, an aging Confederate soldier from Portsmouth, identifying himself only as C.M.B. wrote to the Virginian-Pilot in response to Senator Marion Butler's proposed bill that would open up federal pension plans to all veterans of the Civil War. Despite a divide among many Southerners about the honor of accepting federal pension, C.M.B. argues, Why then should ex Confederates prefer...